THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS!
by Shadows in the Clouds
Summary: Team bonding is important so, what better what to do that then make a game night. Thing's go about as well as you'd expect. There are rules for a reason. This story takes place between chapters 12 and 13 in my fic More Than He Seems. Reading that first is recommended. Part 5 of Avenging Family.


Hey guys. This is a little side chapter of my story More Than He Seems. It takes place between chapters 12 and 13. It just a silly little thing I put together for your enjoyment. So, without further ado, Enjoy!

Also, all of you have now lost The Game!

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Game nights were always an affair at Avengers Tower. First of all, playing any game with highly competitive people never ends well. Second, playing any game with so many different personalities tend to end in chaos. It was a wonder how the tower was still standing.

Game night was usually Wednesday. This was because Tony generally didn't have any night meetings for SI and Pepper was generally alright with giving Tony the night off to bond with his team. So, game night became just as big a tradition as movie night. However, game night had way more rules, strict rules, to keep the adult temper tantrums to a minimum. They didn't always work but they existed as a list on the fridge right next to the food restrictions list and below the house rules list.

Rules for Game Night

1\. Poker is BANNED

2\. Monopoly is banned (it wouldn't be if Nat and Tony would stop working together)

and Tony are NOT allowed to work together in JENGA

4\. Clint is not allowed to use his arrows to win at JENGA

5\. Tony and Bruce cannot be partners for trivia games

6\. Thor and Steve cannot be partners for physical games

7\. Wrestling is no longer allowed after that last Hulk-Out

8\. Cheating at Mario Cart will get you banned from the Wii for a week as well as no deserts

9\. Always wear the Wii mote wrist straps (Clint still isn't the same)

10\. If your cheers of victory wake up Tony's kid, YOU have to put him back to bed

The list was simple but dear lord were the rules broken constantly.

Rule 1.

Tony and Natasha had criminally good poker faces. In one night they had managed to con everybody out of their chips. They were using actual potato chips sure, but the loss was still felt by the losing parties. It looked like Thor was going to cry. And here's the kicker. Tony and Natasha had absolute shit hands each round, they were that good. So, after a night of everyone having their asses handed to them on a silver platter, the team made a rule;

No More Poker!

Rule 2

Monopoly is NOT a team game. Not at all. You don't play monopoly to have fun and make friends with your teammates. You play to win and watch the light drain from their eyes while you take all their money.

Apparently, this was not how Tony and Natasha play. They somehow managed to team up and take over most of the board. If it weren't for the fact that Bruce was about to hulk out and Thor was making it storm outside, it would have been an amazing feat. Slowly but surely, Tony and Natasha drained everyone's monopoly money and spirits. One would say that they had the monopoly on Monopoly. It was when Clint flipped the table when they stopped and made a new rule.

No more Monopoly!

Rules 3 and 4

JENGA. A tame, family-friendly game. A game with strategy and laughs. Well, not when Clint and Tony play together. Having someone with amazing math skill working together with a master marksman with a bow and arrow was never a good idea.

"Clint you can't use your bow!" argued Natasha.

"Nothing in the official rules saying I can't." Grinned Clint as Tony relayed the calculations to the archer.

Clint stepped back and took aim. Naturally, he nailed the block he wanted too and knocked it out of place. The duo high fived and Steve left to go add a new rule to their list.

JENGA is allowed but Tony and Clint are not allowed to work together, and no arrows allowed!

Rules 5 and 6

Trivia games are great. They challenge your mind and are great fun. You can always learn something new! So, when game night rolled around the team decided to play some Trivial Pursuit. Teams were picked, and the game began. Clint was with Natasha, Thor was with Steve, and Tony was with Bruce.

You can probably see how things went wrong.

Clint and Natasha did alright. With their combined spy experience and general being alive to see and experience things they had amassed a decent amount of general knowledge. Steve and Thor suffered a bit. Yes, the team had been catching them up on all the pop culture and science stuff that had happened, and Steve got that Captain America Question right, but they still suffered.

Tony and Bruce on the other hand.

Every single question they got right. Nothing was too hard for the two of them. The only time they had to ask for clarification was on what version of the periodic table was being used for a question.

It was the newest one.

And "Mr. I have a Nobel Prize in chemistry" got it right.

So yes, the teams were incredibly unfair, and it wasn't as fun as it should have been, so they made some new rules.

Make sure the teams are even for all trivia games!

Rule 7

Team sparing was always a good idea. It allowed the team to improve their combat and teamwork skills. Play wrestling and tickling was a different story. It all started when Clint thought it was a good idea a to tackle Bruce on his way out of the gym. Poor Bruce didn't even see it coming as he was flung back into the gym and onto the mats. Clint pounced and began wrestling and ticking Bruce. That was until Bruce started looking a little green. Lucky for Clint he was able to get Bruce to the Hulk Room fast enough.

So, yeah, No More Surprise Wrestling!

Rule 8

Mario Cart tournaments were a big deal at Avengers Tower. Everyone was required to play when one was going on. This included guests such as Rhodey, Pepper, Happy, and Jane when they came to visit. Nothing could summon the team faster than the promise of a Mario Cart tournament. Nothing except the call to assemble that is.

Unfortunately, some people (Clint) think it's funny to try and cheat and sabotage the other players. Nobody's quite sure how he did it, but Clinton Barton was totally using cheats God Damn It! The team wouldn't let him play for a whole week after that. Steve wouldn't even let him have some of his homemade pecan pie. It was so unfair.

Thus, the no cheating rule and punishments were added to the list.

Rule 9

Most video games come with warnings on the box. Warnings such as; "Game contains flashing lights and jump scares", and "Not suitable for players under the age of 18". In the case of Wii Sports, it was "WEAR THE FUCKING WRIST STRAP ON THE WII MOTE!" Alright, so it wasn't written like that, but you get the point.

Unfortunately, this warning was like the Prime Directive in Star Trek. Often quoted, seldom followed.

Steve was a bit of a forgetful guy when it came to this rule. Steve, Tony, Thor, and Clint were playing Wii Bowling when the accident happened. Steve wasn't wearing the wrist strap, so, when he flung his hand back and didn't have a tight enough grip, the Wii mote slipped from his hand and hit poor Clint smack dad in the middle of his forehead.

Clint ended up with a massive goose egg and Steve felt horrible. Rumour has it that Clint still hasn't recovered his pride from the incident after he cried and complained to Natasha like a three-year-old. So, a new rule was added to the list.

ALWAYS wear the wrist strap on the Wii Mote.

Rule 10

Tony was an amazing dad. He was also a very tired dad. With the number of nightmares, he had, he didn't get a lot of sleep. So, on the rare occasion when he did get to sleep, he wanted to stay asleep. Sometimes though, Tony fell asleep in places that weren't his bed. Such as the living room couch… during a game of Life.

The team tried so hard to be quite for Tony's sake. He really needed rest. And the team did try. They really did. They even left the room when they needed to yell or celebrate. That was their downfall. All the noise they made woke up Carter and that in turn had JARVIS wake Tony up so that he could tend to his crying son. Everyone felt guilty when Tony came back down to the living room looking dead on his feet. So, a new rule was made so that their resident tin can could get some much-needed sleep.

If you wake up Carter on game night, YOU have to get him back to sleep.

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That was cute, wasn't it! I hope you all enjoyed this. I just wanted to break up all the sadness and blues of the main story with a little bit of fluff. Until next time -Shadows


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